sign in sign up
<<
Home , Foster Hutchinson, Great chamber, Samuel Sewall

ONEOFFOUR PILASTER-CAPSOFPORTLANDSTONE FROMTHE FACADE OFTHE FOSTER-HUTCHINSON ,, 1689-1692 OLD-TIME NEW

cff Quarterly &kfagaxine Devoted to th cffncient , Household Furnishings, Z)omestic A-ts, 34anners and Customs, and AWnor c.Mntipuities of tk xew England Teop/e

BULLETIN OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF NEW ENGLAND ANTIQUITIES

Volume LIV, No. 3 Jatiwary-March r 964 Serial No. 195

The Foster-Hutchinson House

By ABBOTT LOWELL CUMMINGS

< E shall never be all of one was built, however, for a fuller under- mind in our political princi- standing of the fact, and to explore, inci- W ples,“wrote Thomas Hutch- dentally, the validity of certain statements inson the historian and future Tory gov- made by Thomas Hutchinson in I 778 ernor of in 1767,~ and concerning its history. Writing about his surely, no one knew better than he the great-aunt, Abigail Hawkins, and of her more bitter implications of such a state- several marriages, he says of the second ment. Two years earlier the fine housein husband: “M’ Kellond built my dwelling Boston’s then fashionable Garden Court housein Boston which he gave to his wife Street which had been his life-long and she gave it to my father her nephew was attacked by infuriated revolutionists and he to me.“* In these same family who tore it nearly to pieces.Looking back memoranda the former governor tells us over the history of the ill-fated Foster- the approximate age of the house, which Hutchinson House, in fact, we are con- tallies with other documentary evidence. stantly reminded that its imposing archi- A careful of Thomas Kellond’s life tectural qualities and leading position (so and activity in Boston and of the land far as we now know) as the first de- records, however, makes it virtually cer- veloped example of provincial Palladian- tain that he did not build the Foster- ism in New England, seem overbalanced Hutchinson House. Thomas Hutchinson, at times by its role as part of the stage set- then an exile in England and recalling ting for the century-long political strug- reports of events which had occurred be- gles in New England which prefaced the fore his birth, was apparently correct in war for American independence. one statement but not in the other. In a tangible sense this three-story Thomas Kellond, nevertheless, is a useful masonry pile symbolized from the very starting point and helps in a colorful way outset the weight of establishedauthority. to set the scene. One must examine the period before it Born in England in I 638 he had come

59 60 Old-Time New England to New England at the time of the Res- would not be necessary to address the toration coincidentally or perhaps actu- throne directly in order “to clear them- ally in connection with the royal mandate selves from the least imputation of so of March 5, 1660, for the arrest of the scandalous an eviil, as the appearance of Regicides, Whaley and Goffe, whose disaffection, or disloyalty to the person story in New England has always been and government of their lawful1 prince one of popular interest. Hutchinson and soveraign. . . .“’ writes that “commission and instructions In the meantime, and before October [were given] to two young merchants 21, 1665, when their first child was from England, Thomas Kellond and born, Thomas Kellond had been married Thomas Kirk, zealous royalists, to go to Abigail, the daughter of an early ship through the coloniesas far as Manhadoes captain, Thomas Hawkins, and widow of in search of them.“’ Kellond and Kirk one Samuel Moore. Two of Abigail’s reported later to Governor Endicott that sisters were married during these same they had left Boston on May 7, I 66 I, for years to prominent men with varied po- New Haven Colony and had met with litical opinions. Her youngest sister, continual frustrations in their search for Hannah, married Elisha Hutchinson, the concealed judges. The two young grandfather of the future governor, on men “seem to have been sincere in en- November 9, I 665. “Cola H. my grand- deavouring to apprehend them,” Hutch- father had ever been in oppositionto [the inson diplomatically concludes, “but care royalist governor] Dudley,“’ Thomas was taken that it should not be in their Hutchinson tells us, and in 1688 he power.“4 “joined with Mr Nowell & M’ Mather as Later, in 1678, Thomas Kellond was joint Agents in solliciting favour from one of several named as commissioners King James” against the high-handed with the unpopular Edward Randolph to rule of Sir Edmund Andros.’ The oldest administer to the governor a galling oath sister, Elizabeth, married first Adam “faithfully to execute the duty required Winthrop and then, in 1654, John by the act of trade,“5 and in 1666 he had Richards who reappearsin our narrative joined in a memorial to the General at a later time. Edward Randolph in Court with other loyalists who were con- 1682 wrote spitefully to the Bishop of cerned lest any proceedingsof the Colony London that Richards was “a man of should “have given occasion to his Maj- meane extraction, coming over a poore estie to say that we beleave he hath no servant, as most of the faction were at jurisdiction over us. . . .” The petitioners their first planting heere, but by extraor- acknowledged the “abundant care and dinary feats and coussinadge have gott paines” of the Court in carrying on the them great estates in land. . . .” With government of the Colony, and claimed characteristic bias Randolph thought that that they would “not be unwilling to run Richards “ought to be kept very safe till any hazard . . . for the regular defence all things tending to the quiett and regu- and security of the same,” but in this lation of this [provincial] government be issue, “wherein the honour of God, perfectly settled.“’ Nevertheless, he was [and] the credit of religion,” as well as employed as agent with Governor Dud- their own “persons and estates” were ley to provide the King with an answer concerned they earnestly hoped that it to Randolph’s complaints against the The Foster-Hutchinson House 61

New Englanders, and somehow, through divided in 1676.~’ Here on the western it all, as Hutchinson felt, “remained side of North Street, about in the middle steady to what was called the country in- of the block bounded now by Clark and terest.“” His death was sudden and cli- Fleet Streets, Thomas and Abigail Kel- mactic. reported on Mon- lond lived in what must have been an day, April 2, 1694, that Richards “din’d unusually fine wooden house. The ear- very well . . . and after that falling into liest reference to this in the land an angry passion with his Servant records can be found in a deed for abut- Richard Frame, presently after, fell ting property on July 3, 1677, which probably into a Fit of Apoplexy, and mentions “the Leantoo of sd. Kellond,“l’ died.” The funeral could have done little though the house was surely standing as to soften the harsh impression of this early as 1665-1666 when the Mason- inharmonious final scene, for on the fol- Carr affair took place (of which more lowing Friday when “Major Richards” later). The incomplete tax returns for was buried in his tomb in the North Bury- early Boston locate Thomas Kellond ing Ground, continues Sewall, they were here in 1676, and later, in 1687, his “fain to nail a Board across the Coffins widow in the same location is assessed and then a board standing right up from fqo on “Houseing & whar[ves] “-an that, bearing against the top of the Tomb, evaluation exceeded by two others (at to prevent their floating up and down; fso) and equalled by only six, including sawing and fitting this board,” he com- Peter Sergeant whose fine brick mansion plained, “made some inconvenient Tar- of 1679, later the Province House, was riance.“ll among the leading housesof its day.14 Major John Richards and Thomas We have one impression at least of the Kellond were near neighbors, enjoying Kellond House on North Street, and of portions of an estate which had belonged the elegance of its furnishings, from an originally to Captain Thomas Hawkins, inventory taken at the time of Thomas their father-in-law. Captain Hawkins’ Kellond’s death in 1683. The “Pastur home lot in Boston had stretched from Yards, gardens, wharfes wth dwelling Hanover Street to the sea, bounded on & warehouses” were valued at the north by what later became White- 11,500. There were “Cellars” with bread Alley, and on the oppositeside by cooking implements, both a “Little a line somewhat south of and parallel Parlor” and “great Parlor”-each with with the present Clark Street. Elizabeth equipment, a “” with “18 (Hawkins) (Winthrop) Richards in- Turkey worke chaires” and brass and- herited a lot at the northern end of the irons, and a “Lower Bed Roome” with property (on part of which the New fireplace tools, “2 bedsteeds” and North Church was ultimately erected). “chamlett curtains.” The ‘little Parlor Th e portion which fell to Captain Chamber” had a “pr dogs” and “bayes Thomas’ daughter, Abigail (Hawkins) curtains & bedsteed,” while in the “great (Moore) Kellond, lay at the southern Parlor Chamber” there were, in addition end of the property, on either side of to the andirons and dogs, a pair of North Street, and was augmented by an “Searge Curtains” and “6. Searge addition stretching out to Hanover Street chaires.” The “hall Chamber” was per- at the rear when her mother’s estate was haps the most richly furnished in 62 Old-Time New England the house, including among other items his Majesty’s officers, and that it was well for them that he was not the constable who found “I. Feather bed, bolster, pillows, blan- them there, for he would have carried them be- ketts, bedstead Silke Mohaire curtain’s & fore authority. Sir Robert asked, if he dare silke quilt” valued at f 50, “I great chaire meddle with the King’s commissioners? Yes, of Silke Mohaire,” “Tapestry hangings” says Mason, and if the King himself had been appraisedat f 20, “brass Andirons, Shov- there I would have carried him away. Upon els, tongs” and “ curtain’s,” in which, Maverick cried out, Treason! Mason, thou shalt be hanged within a twelvemonth!rs addition to all of which there were several , another chamber, a “great Gar- The constable was duly charged with rett, ” “little Garrett,” and “other Gar- this “treason” uttered under Thomas retts.“15 Kellond’s , but coming up for trial in Thomas Kellond did not live to wel- the local provincial courts the case soon come Governor Dudley’s successor,the bogged down over technicalities, and in overbearing Edmund Andros, who was the end Mason was simply ordered to be appointed following the revocation of the admonished. Charter, but several years earlier he had When with the accessionof William had a chance to share in one further and Mary to the throne the Colonists in episode that formed a part of the pre- New England saw their chance at last amble to this period. Thomas Hutchinson the odious Andros was served on April describesfully the unwanted interference I 8, I 689, with a summons forthwith to in the affairs of the Colonists from the “surrender and deliver up the Govern- oppressive commissioners appointed in ment and Fortification to be preserved 1664 by Charles II to investigate condi- and disposed according to Order and tions in New England and to adjust all Direction from the Crown of Enghnd, matters in dispute. The dramatic climax, which suddently is expected may ar- involving one Arthur Mason, a Boston rive. . . .“I ’ Among the fifteen signatories constable, is best told in the historian’s occurs the name of John Foster who ap- own words: pears now in the present narrative for the first time, and with this name the first The commissioners with other gentlemen meeting sometimes at a public house called the and second parts of our story are linked. Ship tavern [which stood on the corner of When Thomas Kellond died in 1683 he Clark and North Streets], the constable ex- left two young sons and a daughter. In pected to find them there upon a Saturday even- the division of his estate Thomas Kel- ing, which would have been a breach of law; lond, Jr., was “to have ye Mansion house but before he came, they had adjourned to Mr. Kellond’s, a merchant, who lived opposite to & Land belonging, as now fenced & back- the tavern. Another constable, who had been ward to the back [Hanover] street,” and at the tavern before, had been beaten by them. his widow, Abigail, was to have “ye use Mason, who had more courage and zeal, went of the two Son’s portions till they respec- into the company with his staff, and told them he was glad to see them there, for if he had tively come of age, and of convenient found them on the other side the street he would Roomes for her Selfe in the Mansion have carried them all away; and added, that he house during her naturall life. . . .“I ’ wondered they should be so uncivil as to beat a Judging from the tax returns for scat- constable, and abuse authority. Sir Robert Carr tered years she did continue to make her said, it was he that beat him, and that he would do it again. Mason replied, that he thought his home here. The three children, however, Majesty’s commissioners would not have beaten died in rapid succession, and now, on The Foster-Hutchinson House 63

November 28,1689, with the slate wiped Foster was to become the governor’s ma- clean, with Governor Andros freshly de- ternal grandfather, while his second posed and a new era in prospect, Abigail wife, Abigail, was a sister of the gover- (Hawkins) (Moore) Kellond was mar- nor’s paternal grandmother, Hannah ried by Major John Richards, Assistant, (Hawkins) Hutchinson. Of Mrs. Abi- to her third husband, John Foster. gail Foster, his great-aunt and step- According to Thomas Hutchinson, grandmother, Thomas Hutchinson writes John Foster was a merchant “of the first in I 7 78 that she was ten years older than rank, who came , . . from Ailsbury in her third husband, “a woman of good England . . . [and] had a great share in sense and great virtue” who “left an the management of affairs from 1689 to amiable character as a sincere Christian as 1692.“~’ Like most men of his class he well as what was called in that day a com- recognized the necessity for order and plete gentlewoman and I remember to stability in those relations with the mother have heard my father say that Sir V country which made for profitable trade Phips having married a woman of low relations. Unlike certain other members condition when he was low himself, after of the family into which he married, how- he came to his fortune & title, she was put ever, he seemsto have possessedan even under Mm Fosters instruction in order to temperament. It is almost impossible to learn polite & decent carriage.“21 The imagine him falling into an angry passion Reverend tells us that she with a servant or playing host to a trea- was “an Hater of Differences, and an sonable fracus. He was warmly eulogized Healer of them. . . . One who kept up an by both the Mathers, the Reverend Cot- Intimate Communion with God, espe- ton Mather calling him “a Faithful cially in the Prayer of the , where- Magistrate; A Counsellor continued by to She not only Retir’d every Day, but Annual Election with the esteem of the sometimes Devoted whole Dayes for In- People at the Board . . . A Judge of In- terviews with Heaven.“‘* For John and violate Integrity in the course of his pro- Abigail Foster one can only envision a ceedingson the Bench . . . One Just in his tranquil and pleasant companionship. As Dealings; & Charitable to the Poor. . . . a “Hater of Differences” she would One who Loved both our Liberties, as an scarcely have relished the events which English man, and our Principles as a took place in her home on North Street New-English-man; and often appeared the night Commissioner Carr was chal- for them.“20 lenged by Constable Mason. The recol- Through his marriage to Abigail lection of that event, as well as the deaths (Hawkins) (Moore) Kellond a double of her second husband and their three relationship was establishedfor the future children, could not have made the Kel- Thomas Hutchinson. John Foster had lond House a place entirely of pleasant earlier been married to Lydia, daughter memories. Perhaps John Foster insisted of the Boston Selectman, Daniel Turrell. upon a more fashionable house at the Two daughters survived from this mar- time of their marriage, yet it was Madam riage, the older of whom, Sarah, on De- Kellond, as she was called after Thomas cember 24, 1703, became the wife of Kellond’s death, who seemsto have taken Thomas Hutchinson, St-., and thus John at least some of the initiative in the crea- 64 Old-Time New England tion of their new home which was to be- half feet.*’ These were essentially the come one of the finest residencesbuilt in bounds and measurements which this lot Boston before the Revolution. preserved until the Foster-Hutchinson The land selectedas a site for the new House was demolished in 1833. house stood not far from the Kellond’s The deed from Checkley to Richards North Street home on that short lane-like was executed during the period of Mad- thoroughfare called Garden Court Street am Kellond’s widowhood, more than a which ran from North Square to Fleet year before the death of her last surviving Street. In the earliest years of the City’s child. There is no further mention of the settlement this property had been owned property until Richards sold it on August by Thomas Clarke, merchant. A dwell- 31, 1692, but this later deed fixes pre- ing house had been built upon it by one cisely the date of the Foster-Hutchinson John Shaw of Boston, butcher, between House. In conveying the “parcel of the years 1650 and 1670, as we learn Land,” described as in the earlier deed from the deeds, during which period the of 1685, to John Foster, Esquire, and land had been under lease from Clarke to Abigail, his wife, John Richards tells us Shaw.23 Having acquired the land out- that it is “now in the Actual1 Possession right on December 9, 1670, John Shaw & occupation of the sd John & Abigail and his wife, Elizabeth, sold both the Foster, on part of which they have “dwelling house and land” a week later erected a Brick dwelling house & other under a trust agreement to Anthony Edifices. . . .” If this building was indeed Checkley of Boston, merchant,*’ and a joint venture then actual construction fifteen years later, on April 4, 1685, must have taken place between the period Checkley sold this “parcel of land . . . of their marriage late in 1689 and 1692. Together with all edifices buildings” etc. The deed goes on to specify, however, for f295 “current mony” to Madam that the purchaseprice of f 3oo “Current Kellond’s brother-in-law, Major John money” for the land had been paid to Richards. The property was described as Richards “in hand severall yeares Since lying “neer unto ye North meeting by the sd Abigail Foster then Kel- house,” bounded south-easterly on the lond. . . .“” It is this single statement “street or high way runing between this which establishesthe possibility of some said land & the land late Major Thomas initiative on her part. Whether Mrs. Kel- Clarke’s” (Garden Court St.) where it lond had a new house in mind when she measured one hundred and twenty-three contracted for the property belonging to feet, south-westerly by the “land of mm her brother-in-law, or whether the initial Elisabeth Wensley widdow” (site of the payment represented merely a family future Clark-Frankland House) where business transaction we shall probably it measured one hundred and twenty-six never know. In any event, the deed of feet, “North Westerly upon Mill bridge August 31, 1692, clarifies a later state- street” (Hanover St.) where it measured ment by Thomas Hutchinson in I 778 one hundred and thirty-eight feet, and that upon his father’s marriage to Sarah “North Easterly by another street or high Foster in 1703 “Cal’ Foster and his way leading from the sd Mill bridge wife . . . settled the Mansion house the street downe to Halseys wharf” (Fleet fee being in &Ys Foster on M’ Hutchin- St.), there measuring eighty-four and a son and his eldest son Foster [ Hutchin- The Foster-Hutchinson House 65 son] the Survivor &c” (italics added).” sixty years before. In 1922 Fiske Kimball Elsewhere, incidentally, in a letter of wrote that although the pilaster-caps of September 14, 1775, Hutchinson tells us the faGade“ were built two inches into the that the house “exclusive of the land cost , it is almost inconceivable that these my Ancestors Two thousand pounds excellently understood Ionic capitals can Sterlg.“28 date from the original erection of the In 1676, several years before the Fos- house. . . . Possiblythey were added after ter-Hutchinson House was built, Edward the fire which destroyed the cupola in Randolph, then about to embark for New I748.“3O Professor Hugh Morrison of England, was furnished with statistical Dartmouth is the first scholar in more estimateswhich he was to confirm or dis- modern times to refute the notion that prove. From these we learn that there these elements were later intrusions. “It were then, as it was supposed,some I ,500 is possiblethat details such as the families in Boston with fifteen merchants and balustrade could have been products worth about fso,ooo and five hundred of an eighteenth-century remodeling,” personsworth f3,ooo each. No house in he writes, “but it seemshighly improbable New England contained more than that the giant pilasters were. The sheer twenty , and not twenty in Boston labor of chiseling two-inch deep channels had more than ten rooms each.2g This into the ‘very fine brickwork’ to receive statement was made before the building the wide pilasters; the fact that the win- in 1679 of the Peter Sergeant (later the dow spacing was so opportune to receive Province) House, which must have been them; the location of the chimneys . . . one of the most ambitious residences all these seem to belie the theory of a re- which Bostonians had then seen on this modeling. . . . The conclusion seemsin- side of the Atlantic. From what could be escapablethat the exterior of the Hutch- learned of its seventeenth-century ap- inson House was substantially the same pearance when the surviving were when it was built as it appearsin the en- demolished in 1922 the housewas funda- graving of 1836.“~~ The reference to mentally Elizabethan with Flemish “very fine brickwork” is taken from the gables and a great buttressing statement of “an officer addressing the whose flues were gathered into a cluster lords of trade” following the mob attack of stacks. in 1765: “‘As for the house, which from With the erection of the Foster- the structure and inside finishing, seemed Hutchinson House between 1689 and to be from a design of Inigo Jones or his 1692 Bostonians were to discover that successor,it appearsthat they were a long the Glorious Revolution in their political while resolved to level it to the ground: affairs heralded a revolution in architec- they worked three hours at the cupola be- ture as well. The building was thoroughly fore they could get it down, and they un- provincial, yet its three-story Ionic pilas- covered part of the roof; but I suppose, ters, its regularly spaced and that the thickness of the walls, which circular-headed pediment in the second were of very fine brick-work, adorned story were in all likelihood the first taste with Ionic pilastersworked into the wall, for New Englanders of the academic prevented their completing their purpose, architectural ideas which had been intro- though they worked at it till daylight.“‘s2 duced into England by Inigo Jones some In further support of Professor Mor- Old-Time New England rison’s contention it should be pointed out Peter Sergeant House of 1679, home of that Thomas Hutchinson himself, in the a leading citizen, made little or no con- several references to the house which he cession to recent English architectural makes in his family annals, says nothing trends in its conception and finish, but as of any alterations or enlargements. More- early as February 20, 1692, Samuel Sew- over, it is clear from the William Burgis all wrote to England for “sixty small view of in I 726 that the Blocks of Stone, two foot long, one foot

FIG. I. LINDSEYHOUSE, LINCOLN ’S INN FIELDS, LONDON, DESIGNEDABOUT I640 BY INrco JONESOR ONE OF HIS FOLLOWERS From Colen Campbell’s Vitrutius Britannicus (London, I 7 I 5). developed Renaissance had put in its ap- high, one foot upon the head, for pearance here certainly by 1699 with the coins. . . .“33 This order for quoins to be well-documented erection of Stoughton used presumably in connection with his Hall at Harvard in that year. In this near- Boston house, newly enlarged in brick in contemporary picture one can see clearly 1693, would again suggestthe use of aca- the classical detail of the doorways with demic detail, though mention elsewhere their circular-headed pediments, quoins of both “Casements” and “Quarrels” of at the corners of the building, and reg- glass show that his windows were by no ularly spaced dormer windows. The means new-fashioned.3’ The Sewall ref- The Foster-Hutchinson House 67 erence has further interest, for recent school (Fig. I ) . It is interesting that the analysis of chips from the Foster-Hutch- “officer addressing the lords of trade” in inson House pilaster-cap by both English I 765 recognized also the basic derivation and American geologists has identified from Inigo Jones, but certainly one can the material as Portland stone, a fact of go no further except, perhaps, than to which Fiske Kimball was presumably un- suggest that there may be an echo here aware. Having thus been imported, these of mid seventeenth-century Dutch-

FIG.Z. FOST-ER-HUTCHINSON HOUSE,BOSTON, 1689-1692 From TAe American Magazine of Useful &i Entertaining Knowledge (February, I 836).

pilaster-caps in all likelihood were carved Palladian influence coming into England in England as well, which fully accounts after the Restoration in which the use of for their “excellently understood” detail brick with stone trim played a conspicuous (see frontispiece). role. Whatever the specific source, the For the house itself one would be hard interpretation is strongly provincial, par- pressed to find an exact English model. It ticularly in such details as the discontinu- is perhaps more to the point to suggest ance of the entablature (which appears that the ultimate archetype is to be found in fragmented form above each pilaster) in such a building as Lindsey House in in order to accommodate the third-story Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London, designed windows.35 Similarly, the celestial crown about 1640 by Inigo Jones or one of his and Maltese cross (an unfamiliar heraldic 68 Old-Time New England combination) which surmount the egg his money, plate and “every other article and dart motif of the Ionic pilaster-cap in the house& cellars. . . the of are not to be found in any of the contem- a only excepted”37-which ac- porary European architectural publica- counts for the absenceof that room in the tions, and must represent either the whim inventory. Passing to the third story he of the carver or his American client. mentions the “upper entry” and “the Our limited knowledge of the plan chamber over great chamber,” but fol- and interior of this house is derived for lows this with “the cellar” and “my son the main part from two principal sources. Thomass chamber” (which contained First and most important is the inventory fireplace tools), to which may be added which Thomas Hutchinson compiled of from the rough draft an unlocated “press household furnishings destroyed when chamber”-perhaps on the third , the mob entered the house on August 26, judging from its position in the document I 765.” This schedule, for which there following “the chamber over [or existsboth a rough and finished draft, was great] chamber.” intended to serve as the basisof his claim The second source, while found in a for indemnity, and is valuable today for work of fiction, has generally been ac- the picture it creates of a sumptuously cepted as a factual account of the interior. furnished house and for the fact that the In The Rebels, or Boston Before the contents were catalogued room by room Revolution, the author, Lydia Maria and include items which give at least some Child, describesa visit to the “Lieutenant impression of architectural features. Mr. Governor’s elegant mansion” in the early Hutchinson lists the various rooms in the evening when “the dim light of a lamp following order: “the below” suspended from the roof, gave a rich (called “Parlour” in the rough draft) twilight view of the interior, and dis- with mention of fireplace tools, “2 Glass played a spaciousarch, richly carved and sconcesat ye side of the mantlepiece,” and gilded, in all the massy magnificence of certain objects “In the closet;” “the the time, and most tastefully ornamented Hall,” with fireplace tools, “buffatt” and with busts and statues.” On the right “5 large bustson the mantle piece; ” “the hand was a “dimly-lighted parlour. The little room,” again with fireplace equip- pannelling was of the dark, richly-shaded ment and mention of a “window cush- mahogany of St. Domingo, and orna- ion” which suggests a window embra- mented with the same elaborate skill as sure ; “the Entry,” to which the rough the hall they had just quitted. . . . On draft adds an “entry closet;” and “the either side of the room there were aches great chamber” (“parlour chamber” in surmounted with the arms of England, in the rough draft) and “hall chamber,” the recessesof which the company were both with fireplace equipment. Next in soon seated. . . .” One room she calls a order are the “back chamber,” “my “library” which “contained the finest lodging chamber” and “the kitchen collection of books then in the Colonies. chamber” in none of which does there . . . It was hung with Canvass tapestry, on happen to be any mention of fireplace which was blazoned the coronation of furnishings. Hutchinson tells us else- George II., here and there interspersed where that the mob made a thorough job with the royal arms. . . .“38 These tap- of destroying and casting into the street estry hangings, if correctly described, The Foster-Hutchinson House 69 would suggestthat Mrs. Child (who was Foster this day was three weeks.” Burial not born until 1802) drew upon some took place “at the North, in the Tomb of earlier source of information for the ap- Mr. Kellond, her former Husband.“40 pearance of the rooms before their de- On the last day of that same month, struction in 1765, but the question can March 3 I, the Reverend Cotton Mather have no cut and dried answer. The house, recorded in his diary that he had, on the as we know almost for a certainty, was preceding Wednesday, kept a day of repaired, and the statement made at the prayer and fasting “with a great Com- time of its demolition in 1833 that “most pany of Christians, who mett at the of the work of the interiour was of red House lately forsaken by the Death of the cedar” may easily refer to the period fol- two most eminent Persons in my Neigh- lowing these repairs. The same report, borhood.“41 incidentally, furnishes approximate di- The settlement of the mansion house mensions for the house. “Its front was was confirmed in Mrs. Foster’s will upwards of fifty feet,” we are told, “and drawn on March I, I 7 I I, in which she its breadth forty,“se making the ground gave “my present Dwelling or Brick plan a fraction larger than that of the Mansion housein Boston . . . with all the Royal1 House in Medford. Land [and] buildings . . . unto my Lov- Before turning to that most dismal ing Nephew CapP Thomas Hutchinson hour in the life of this celebrated building, and to his Son for- we should pick up the thread of its later ever.“” Captain Hutchinson apparently history. Despite the fact that the house took up his residence here at this time. was settled on his parents in 1703, as Several children having been born to Thomas Hutchinson tells us, it would ap- Thomas and Sarah Hutchinson, of whom pear that John and Abigail Foster con- Foster was the oldest, the future gover- tinued to be its only principal occupants. nor tells us himself, that he was “born in Affectionately linked in life, their deaths Boston Sunday September 9th 171 I occurred within a month of one another. about I I oclock in the evening and was Colonel John Foster was the first to go the first person born in the house which on February 9, I 7 I I, “between I I and had been built between twenty & thirty 12 m., ” as Sewall tells us. “His place at years and which afterwards came to him the Council Board and Court will hardly by inheritance.“43 be filled up,” the diarist lamented. “I With Foster Hutchinson’s death in have lost a good Left-hand man. The 172 I Thomas Hutchinson, Jr., stood Lord save New-England! ” On Thurs- next in line, and received the property by day, February 15, when Colonel Foster bequestunder the will of his father, dated was entombed, Governor Dudley, Sewall October IO, I 739. He was then twenty- himself and other notables of the period eight years of age, and had two years were among the bearers, and “Many earlier been elected a Representative for great Guns were fired.” Within three the Town of Boston. From this time for- weeks Sewall recorded Mrs. Foster’s ward his interests were centered almost death on March 5, “between I I and 12 entirely in the government of the Prov- at Noon.” The Governor and the diarist ince of MassachusettsBay and in its po- were again among the bearers which litical affairs. He was elected to the were “the same that were for Col. Council in I 749, having been Speaker of Old-Time New England the House of Representatives for the and my Servant Man Peter.“” Sarah three preceding years, and in I 75 2 suc- (Foster) Hutchinson lived on with her ceeded his uncle, Edward Hutchinson, as son and his growing family until her Judge of Probate for Suffolk County. death on November 6, 1752. Even be- His appointment as lieutenant governor fore this time, however, there had been came in 1758. It is not easy for the lay unpleasant incidents which must have person who reads the correspondence, given some sense of foreboding to the and, for the later years, the diaries of family. Thomas Hutchinson tells us, for Thomas Hutchinson, to comprehend en- example, that he was threatened “more tirely the violence of the reaction against than once . . . with destruction by some him on the part of the American patriots. of the People of the Town and his house While standing firm on all his loyalist takeing fire on the top the Lanthorn be- principles, he seemsnevertheless by tem- ing in a blaze some of the lower class perament to have been both reasonable cursed him & cried let it burn.“46 and objective, and even as an older man The storm which raged in Boston over dispassionate.In a letter from London to the Stamp Act in the mid 1760’s is fa- a friend dated November 2, 1774, he miliar to every American schoolboy, and promises to write “no Politicks unless it Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson’s role be Politicks to tell you that I bear not the in the events which led up to the fateful least ill will to my Milton Neighbours evening of August 26, 1765, has been for the share they have at last taken in the thoroughly rehearsed by a number of general confusion. . . . I shall yet live & writers. Hutchinson himself gives the die among them & I trust recover their most vivid account of the attack (from esteem.“44 Earlier, in the Preface to the which he very narrowly escapedpersonal second volume of his celebrated History, injury) in a letter written a few days he had declared “I desire no more can- later on August 30 to Richard Jackson: dour from those who differ from me, I came from my house at Milton with my than I ever have been, and ever shall be family the 26 in the morning After dinner it ready to shew to them.” By long inherit- was whispered in town there would be a mob ance, however, his outlook was altogether at night & that Paxton Hallowell, & the custom house & admiralty officers houses would be at- that of the mercantile aristocracy to tacked but my friends assured me the rabble which he belonged. This fact--of which were satisfied with the insult I had received & his house was an outward visible symbol that I was become rather popular. In the even- -and his central role in the growing po- ing whilst I was at supper & my children round me somebody ran in & said the mob were com- litical turmoil, combined to make him a ing I directed my children to fly to a secure particular target, place & shut up my house as I had done before Under Thomas Hutchinson, Sr.‘s, will intending not to quit it but my eldest daughter of October IO, 1739, his widow, Sarah, repented her leaving me St hastened back & pro- “my Dearly beloved Wife,” was given tested she would not quit the house unless I did. I could not stand against this and withdrew the “Use and Improvemt” of the man- wth her to a neighbouring house where I had sion house during her lifetime, and all been but a few minutes before the hellish crew the “Houshold furniture of every sort. . . fell upon my house with the rage of devils & Excepting the furniture belonging to the in a moment with axes split down the & entred my son being in the great entry heard Parlour Chamber,” together with “my them cry damn him he is upstairs we’ll have Coach & Harness with the Two Horses him. Some ran immediately as high as the top The Foster-Hutchinson House 71 of the house others filled the rooms below and on Garden Court Street whose battered cellars & others remained without the house to shell he must have had repaired during be employed there. Messages soon came one after another to the house where I was to in- the winter of 1765-1766:’ Concerning form me the mob were coming in pursuit of me any such repairs we have but a single and I was obliged to retire thro yards & gardens mute piece of evidence. Among the col- to a house more remote where I remained until lections of the Bostonian Society are three .+ o’clock by which time one of the best finished fireplace tiles of the Sadler variety, sal- houses in the Province had nothing remaining but the bare walls & . Not contented with vaged from the Foster-Hutchinson House tearing off all the wainscot & hangings & split- at the time of its demolition in I 833 (Fig. ting the doors to pieces they beat down the par- 3). These can be dated to the so-called tition walls & altho that alone cost them near Sadler and Green period (1761-1770) two hours they cut down the cupola or lanthern & they began to take the slate & boards from the or later, with a good possibility that they roof & were prevented only by the approaching are no earlier than 1764,~’ and would daylight from a total demolition of the build- thus in all likelihood have figured in the ing. The garden fence was laid flat & all my rehabilitation of the house. At the time of trees &cr broke down to the ground. Such ruin was never seen in America.4T Hutchinson’s death, incidentally, we find a record of receipt on April 30, 1779, And following this lurid night’s work “for Rent of Daniel Martin for year -silence. People came from the country I 779 Agreeable to Resolve of ye Genl to see the ruins, writes Hutchinson, but Court of ye Mansion House,” and on almost as though the subject were too May 8, 1779, cash was paid to Joseph painful to mention, he tells us nothing of Eustice “for Mend: Front & what happened to the house from the Fence of Mansion House in Boston” dur- night of August 26 until he sailed per- ing the preceding February.‘l manently for England nine years later.. The Foster-Hutchinson House re- From his correspondence we learn that mained standing until 1833. Having he retired within a day or two of the at- been confiscated by the Province of Mas- tack to his summer home in Milton, and sachusetts Bay on April 30, 1779, the remained there, apparently, through the property passed through several hands, winter. His papers show clearly, how- and was acquired on February 4, 1792, ever, that he was living in Boston during by William Little, a Boston merchant, the years which followed. Later, for ex- for f935 lawful money, and henceforth ample, on July I, I 774, he said to King became his home.5* At the time of the Di- George III in a personal interview “I rect Tax in 1798 Mr. Little was de- have lived in the Country Sir in the sum- scribed as owner and occupier, the build- mer for 20 years but except the winter ing covering 1,836 square feet of land after my house in town was pulled down and having fifty-two windows.53 One I have never lived in the Country in win- Henry Lee who knew the houseas a boy, ter until the last” (i.e., the winter of reported to the members of the Massa- ‘773-r774).48 There had been no chusetts Historical Society in 188 I that thought of exile in I 765, and at least two William Little’s family “remained there statements made by Hutchinson later in till its downfall,” and that both this build- life can be construed to show that his resi- ing and the Clark-Frankland House next dence during these years between 1766 were then “festooned with Virginia and I 773 was indeed the family mansion creeper, behind their green court- 72 Old-Time New England yards. . . .” These “rival mansions,” as part of the real estate whereof I shall die he calls them, were each three stories in seized. . . .“55 According to the terms of height, although the Clark-Frankland this provision, promptly carried into exe- House, begun presumably in I 7 I 2 and cutioq5’ the once proud mansion, styled

FIG. 3, ONEOFTHREESADLERFIREPLACETILES,~~~~ I 765, WHICHWERESALVAGEDFROMTHEFOSTER-HUTCHINSONHOUSEIN 1833 Courtesyof the BostonianSociety. furnished with dormer windows, is de- by its most distinguished owner as “one of scribed unexplainably by Mr. Lee as the best finished houses in the Province,” “looking down upon its two-storied was ignominiously swept away. The neighbor. . . .“54 event did not go entirely unnoticed at the William Little’s death occurred in the time. On April 2, 1833, the Boston summer of I 83 I, and his executors were American Traveller observed that “Gov. directed by will to dispose of “all or any Hutchinson’s Old Mansion in Garden The Foster-Hutchinson House 73

Court and Hanover street, is now about where it remained until I 960, when, un- being taken down. It was built upwards der the terms of a specialarrangement, it of a century since.” Antiquarians, as well was transferred to the architectural mu- as others, would do well to make a visit seum of the Society for the Preservation to the immense pile alluded to, before its of New England Antiquities. thick massy walls, with its Ionic pilasters, Later historians have dealt much less shall be levelled with the ground.” Two harshly with Thomas Hutchinson than months later, on May 29, the Columbian did his contemporaries. When, in fact, we Centid reported that the building “is shift attention from the highly charged now taking down by Messrs. Ritchie & political writings of the period to the gov- Myers, who have presented to the Massa- ernor’s diaries and personal correspond- chusetts Historical Society, the Capital ence, a thoroughly different picture of one of the pilasters wrought in Port- emerges. He lived in England a broken- land Stone, to be placed in the Society’s hearted exile, and until his death in I 780 room over the Savings Bank in Tremont never gave up hope of a return to Amer- street, as a Pedestal for the Bust of ica. On January 9, I 775, some six Washington, copied in Plaster of Paris, months after arriving in England, he from the one in Marble by Houdon, and wrote to his son, Thomas, who had staid presented to the Society by our late Con- behind at the family summer home in sul, Mr. Lee.” Milton, “I long to return to you which Students of architectural history will I say little about and not only put on the ever be grateful to “Messrs. Ritchie and best appearance but take every method Myers”” for their gift of this pilaster-cap most likely to keep up my spirits and which but though a single element in a chiefly for that purpose I made a journey large structure nevertheless adds signifi- here [to Bath] but I meet with no diver- cantly to our knowledge of the building. sionsor entertainments that are so agree- While there may have been some sem- able to me as what I could find at home. blance of dignity in its initial use as a ped- Indeed I had rather live in obscurity there estal for the plaster bust of Washington, than in pomp and splendor here.“” The it had succumbed to a wretched fate one question of their future in England must hundred years later when William Sum- have been one of the common staples of ner Appleton found it in 1936 forlornly conversation among the expatriated exposed to a discharge of rusty water in Tories. A few years later on May 15, the rear of the Historical So- 1779, Hutchinson noted in his diary that ciety’s headquarters. A spirited corre- “Doctor Gardiner & Cal” Pickman called spondencesprang up between Mr. Apple- on me from Bristol & dined with two ton and the Society’s director which Auchmutys Co1 Chandler & Tress’ revealed that the pilaster-cap had been [Harrison] Gray. They are all anxious removed to the courtyard at the behest to return to America except Gray. He & of a member (tactfully unnamed) whose Ch. Just Oliver and Secretary Flucker sense of patriotic decency was offended wish to have some Provision in England by this bit of Tory memorabilia!59 Time & never much think of America. I can see is on the side of the antiquarian, and ulti- reasons which are personal for each of mately the pilaster-cap was restored to a them. I have more of the old Athenians dignified position in the Society’s rotunda in me & though I know not how to reason 74 Old-Time New England upon it, I feel a fondnessto lay my bones tion has now been largely forgotten, but in my Native Soil and to carry those of as a result of the intense bitternesswhich my dear [deceased] daughter with me.” erupted into violence, and as a result of a A few months before his death he wrote nineteenth-century lack of concern, we tersely on February I, I 780, “The pros- of the twentieth-century have a continu- pect of returning to America and laying ing share in the senSeof lossand exile ex- my bones in the land of my fore fathers perienced by Thomas Hutchinson, sepa- for four Preceding generations . . . is rated forever from this house on Garden less than it has ever been. God grant Court Street which must always rank as me a composed mind, submissive to his one of the finest dwellings erected in Bos- will. . . .“‘l ton during the early years of its settle- The rancor inspired by divided loyal- ment. ties at the time of the American Revolu-

NOTES r Thomas Hutchinson, Tire History of Mac- County Deeds where conveyances for abutting sachusetts. . . (Boston, r795), II, viii. The first property determine the ownership: X, 223, and second volumes of Hutchinson’s History 331 j and plan filed in the Massachusetts State (as hereafter cited) were published in Boston Archives, Third Series, III, 25. in I 764 and t 767 respectively. The third vol- l3 Suffolk County Deeds, X, 223. ume was published posthumously in London in l4 Massachusetts State Archives, CXXVI, I 828. All quotations of material to be found 286-306. in volumes I and II are drawn from the third edition, published in Boston in 1795. l5 Suffolk County Probate Records, IX, r56- 158. s Family record, genealogica: and biograph- ical, entitled “Hutchinson in America,” writ- l6 Hutchinson’s History, I, 232-233. The ten by Thomas Hutchinson in 1778 at the end historian has reported the conversation sub- of the fifth volume of his diary, p. 28. Quota- stantially as recorded in the original deposition tions from this source, cited hereafter as Hutch- taken in 1666 which describes the altercation inson in America, have been taken from a (see Suffolk County Court Files, case no. 79’). microfilm (Massachusetts Historical Society) l7 Nathaniel Byfield, An Account of the late of the original document preserved in the Mss. Revolution in New-England . . . (London, Dept. of the British Museum. 1689), p. 20. 3 Hutchinson’s History, I, 199 n. ls Suffolk County Probate Records, IX, r58- 4 Thomas Hutchinson, A CoLZection of 159. Thomas Kellond’s widow, Abigail, re- Original Papers Rekztiwe to the History of the tained possessionof the Kellond House and she Colony of Massachsetts-Bay (Boston, 1769), and John Foster conveyed it under the terms of p. 334 and footnote. (Hereafter cited as a trust agreement to Thomas Hutchinson, Sr., Original Papers.) Jan. 29, 1704, the house then being rented, as the deed explains (Suffolk County Deeds, XXI, 5 Hutchinson’s History, I, 297. 478). On Jan. 16, r 7’5, the Second Church in 6 Original Papers, pp. 5 I 2-s I 3. Boston voted to hire “the House of Mr. r Hutchinson in America, p. 34. Thomas Hutchinson in Ship [North] -Street, 8 Ibid., p. 27. now vacant,” for Dr. Cotton Mather until 9 Original Papers, p. 5 3 3. other provision could be made for him (Mas- sachusetts Historical Som’ety Collections, Sev- lo Hutchinson’s History, II, st n. enth Series, VII, pt. 2, p. 299 n.), and on July r1 Diary of Samuel Sewall, Massachusetts 74, I 7 I 5, Samuel Sewall records, “I visited Dr. Historical Society CoZLxtions, Fifth Series, V, C. Mather and his new Wife at the house that 389-390. was Mr. Kellond’s.” (Massachusetts Historical I2 See Hutchinson in America and Suffolk Society Collections, Fifth Series, VII, 49.) This The Foster-Hutchinson House 75 house passed as a part of Thomas Hutchinson, provincial buildings, not unlike the Foster- Sr.‘s, residual estate in I 739 to Thomas Hutch- Hutchinson House, built at about the same time inson, Jr. (Suffolk County Probate Records, in England, see for example those buildings XXXIV, 520), and was sold by him in halves erected following a fire in I 694 on Church St. on Jan. 17, 1759 (Suffolk County Deeds, in Warwick, shown in Fig. 3, p. 725 of “War- XCII, 188, 192). wick and its --II,” Country Life

Is Hutchinson’s History, II, 21 n. (Sept. 7, 1951). 2o Cotton Mather, Orphanotrophium . . . 36 Massachusetts Archives, VI, 301 ff. [sermon] (Boston, 171 I), p. 67. 3r Hutchinson in America, p. 77. sr Hutchinson in America, pp. 36, 28-30. 3s Lydia Maria Child, The Rebels, or Bos- ** Cotton Mather, op. cit., p. 68. ton Before the Revolution (Boston, 1825), pp. 23 Suffolk County Deeds, VII, 60, 58. 8, IO, 35 and 36. 24 Ibid., VII, 6 I. 30 The American Magazk of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, II (Boston, Febru- 25Ibid., XIII, 299. ary r836), 237. Dating also perhaps to the 28 Ibid., XV, 20 1. period of repairs and rehabilitation is a single * ’ Hutchinson in America, p. 40. interior modilion block (Society for the Preser- 28 Thomas Hutchinson, Letter-book, Vol. II, vation of New England Antiquities) with an microfilm (Massachusetts Historical Societv) unsupported claim of having come from the of the original document preserved in the Mis. Foster-Hutchinson House. Taking the various Dept. of the British Museum. Cited hereafter statements of Thomas Hutchinson at face value as Hutchinson’s Letter-book. it is hard to understand how even the smallest scrap of earlier architectural finish escaped the *O Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, fury of the mob. America and West Indies, 1675-1676 . . . (London, I 893), p. 362. 4o Diary of Samuel Sewall, Massachusetts 3o Fiske Kimball, Domestic Architecture of Historical Society Collections, Fifth Series, VI, the American Colonies and of the Ear/y Re- 300-301, 303. ps&k (New York, 1922), p. 65. 4*Diary of Cotton Mather, Massachusetts 31 Hugh Morrison, Early American Archi- Historical Society Collections, Seventh Series, tecture.. . (New York, 1952), p. 477, quoted VIII, ii, 54. with permission of the publisher, Oxford Uni- 42 Suffolk County Probate Records, XVII, versity Press. 298. 32 Caleb H. Snow, A History of Boston . . . 43 Hutchinson in America, p, 45. (Boston, 1825), p. 261. 44 Hutchinson’s Letter-book, Vol. I. 33 Letter-book of Samuel Sewall, Massaclru- 45 Suffolk County Probate Records, XXXIV, setts Historical Society Collections, Sixth Series, 521-522. I, 130. 46 Hutchinson in America, p. 58. The con- 34 Diary of Samuel Sewall, Massachusetts text would suggest a date in or about I 748 for Historical Society Collections, Fifth Series, V, this event. 388, 402. It has-seemed puzzling to some stu- dents that the Foster-Hutchinson House, if so I’ Massachusetts Archives, XXVI, 146. noteworthy a landmark in style, should have 4s Diary of Thomas Hutchinson, Vol. I, mi- escaped contemporary comme1.t. This argu- crofilm (Massachusetts Historical Society) of ment has no relevance, however, for the almost the original document preserved in the Mss. equally imposing Peter Sergeant house, the Dept. of the British Museum. Cited hereafter Shrimpton and Clark-Frankland Houses are as Hutchinson’s Diary. all unmentioned by visitors to Boston during 40 Hutchinson’s Diary,_- Vol. IV, Sept. I, this same period, to say nothing of such leading 1778, and Letter-book, Sept. 14, 1.775~(to a local diarists as Sewall and Cotton Mather. friend). In the closing vears of this ueriod , s , 1 35 For this observation the author is indebted Thomas Hutchinson may have lived briefly in to Miss Priscilla Metcalf of London who has the Province House, official residence of the been helpful as well with suggestions of equally Colonial governors, but the evidence in sup- 76 Old-Time New England port of any such claim is both slender and con- inventory is on file, presented Oct. I 7, I 8 3 t, flicting. the rooms, however, being numbered only and 5o E. Stanley Price, John Sadler . . . (W. not named (CXXIX2, 295). Kirby, England, t948), pp. 54-55. 56 SeeSuffolk County Deeds, CCCLXVIII, 51 Suffolk County Probate Records, LXXIX, 267 (with plan), CCCLXXIX, 180, I 19 and LXXXI, 777. CCCLXXVIII, I 23, etc. 52 See Suffolk County Deeds, CXLV, 126, 5r An error based apparently on ignorance I 29 and CLXXII, 36. of the facts. Similarly, the Coluntbian Cen&eZ reports on May 29 that the “mansion of the 53 Boston Record Commissioners Report, late Gov. Hutchinson in Garden Court street, No. 22, p. 1,~. [was] built by his father about the beginning 54 Proceedings of th Massachusetts Histori- of the last century. , . .” cal Society (February, 1881), pp. 346-347. ssActually, as recorded in the Proceedings Another member of the Mass. Hist. Sot., Mr. of the Massachusetts Historical Society under Edwin L. Bynner (1842-1893), reported that date of May 30, 1833, it was voted “That the the house “was built of brick and painted; the thanks of the Society be forwarded to Messrs. plainness of the facade being relieved by a rep- Thayer and Ritchie for the donation of the resentation of the British crown over every caprtal of one of the pillars of Governor window” in addition to those which appeared Hutchinson’s house.” in the pilaster-caps. Mr. Bynner, however, does not reveal the source of his information. (See 6s See Hutchinson House, Correspondence Justin Winsor, The Memorial History of Bos- Files, Society for the Preservation of New Eng- ton. . . , II (Boston, C1881), 526. land Antiquities. 55 Suffolk county Probate Records, 6o Hutchinson’s Letter-book, Vol. II. CXXIX’, 164. An interesting room by room 81 Hutchinson’s Diary, Vols. IV, VII.